All sorts of Oxalises are blooming, though none of them look quite as happy as they should… I don’t know what they want.

Oxalis articulata

Oxalis spiralis subsp. vulcanicola

Oxalis triangularis

Oxalis tetraphylla 'Iron Cross'

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Back on the Juliet balcony, the ever-bearing forest strawberries (Fragaria vesca var. semperflorens) are still blooming dutifully:

Fragaria vesca var. semperflorens

And the Fuchsia, at least when we remember to water it (if it gets dry, the flowers are always the first to shrivel up – and since none of us are very diligent waterers, we don’t get to see many unshrivelled flowers.)

Fuchsia Cv

And lastly, my newest beauty (oh, all right, not really a beauty – more like, a wonderfully weird-looking thing) – one of the few houseplants I actually bought for its flowers:

Ceropegia sandersonii

I’ve been eyeing these greedily since the nearest garden centre (which is pretty much just around the corner) got them in about a month ago. There only were about 15 initially, and 10 were still there when I bought mine – I assume people are either put off by the weird looks (no idea why people insist on having the same standard flowers all the time…), or they think, ‘wow, this looks strange – it must be difficult to care for!’

I’ve had my doubts, too, but nothing I’ve seen so far suggests I’ll kill this quickly. Light might be a problem, but I’ll just have to convince my mother that this absolutely needs to go into the living room. That way, it’ll get even more astonished stares.

In fairness, it’s usually not a bad assumption that uncommon plants are hard to care for. The common ones are either common because they’re easy to produce (Chlorophytum, Syngonium), they’re highly desirable (Calathea, Gardenia), or they’re exceptionally durable (Dracaena, Epipremnum). If a plant doesn’t have one of those three things going for it, it’s not necessarily trouble, I guess, but I personally tend to be a bit wary unless I know it’s related to stuff I’ve grown successfully or other people tell me they’ve grown one successfully.

It’s not that I don’t understand the thought… but I feel so sorry for those poor plants stuck there in the garden centre because no-one wants to give them a chance…
What’s worse, I also feel sorry for the plants in ‘my’ own shop… but I’m not adopting those Nepenthes, simply because I have nowhere to put a hanging basket, and boring holes in the ceiling is so exhausting!

That final photo certainly portrays an odd plant… I’m not at all familiar with ceropegia. I have used mezoo trailing red in the past in hyper-tuffa containers, and enjoyed it very much… enjoyed all your photos… L